CUBA NEWS
April 13, 2005

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U.S. Criticizes Cuba on Human Rights

By Sam Cage, Associated Press Writer, April 12 2005.

GENEVA - The United States has filed a new resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Commission criticizing Cuba's record on abuses and requested that the world body keep the communist country's record under observation, officials said Tuesday.

Keeping up its pressure on Cuba, the United States proposed the renewal of top U.N. investigator Christine Chanet's mandate to report to the commission on the human rights situation there. The commission, often led by Washington, regularly criticizes Cuba.

In her report to the commission on abuses in Cuba, which Chanet presented last month, she noted the government's release of 18 political prisoners last year was a positive step, but did "not signify the end of the repression" because other political detainees were still jailed.

Chanet urged Cuba to improve its treatment of political prisoners, who often receive poor food, hygiene and medical treatment. She also said Cuba should stop penalizing journalists, academics and activists for acts of free expression.

Chanet's report said Cuban authorities arrested people in 2004 for expressing anti-government opinions, working with international human rights organizations and participating in associations or academic groups deemed counterrevolutionary.

Cuba has never allowed a U.N. human rights envoy to visit, claiming such visits could infringe on its sovereignty. Chanet prepared her report based on meetings with campaigners, human-rights investigators and other governments.

Washington requested that the commission renew resolutions from previous years condemning Cuba's human rights record, according to the draft text of the resolution.

In past years the vote has almost always been close. The commission last year narrowly passed a resolution by other Latin American nations critical of Cuba's rights record. It was adopted 22-21 with 10 abstentions.

Censure by the U.N. watchdog brings no penalties but spotlights a government's record, and delegations lobby hard in an effort to avoid it.

Cuba has launched a campaign to defend itself, and a Cuban foreign ministry document titled "Cuba and Human Rights," said the United State's strategy is focused on "fabricating a false perception of an intolerant and rigid society."

Separately, the United States and European Union co-sponsored a resolution condemning abuses in Belarus. It expressed "deep concern" that senior officials have been implicated in the 1999 disappearance or execution of three political opponents.

It singled out one of the three who disappeared, former Interior Minister Yuri Zakharenko. Also missing are Viktor Gonchar, the former vice speaker of the Belarusian parliament, and his friend, the businessman Anatoly Krasovsky.

The resolution noted the disappearance of Russian TV cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky in 2000 and "the continuing investigatory cover-up."

It also cited findings of observers that last year's elections fell "significantly short" of Belarus' European commitments to allow free and fair voting.

In Belarus, prosecutors said Tuesday they had reopened the investigation into Zavadsky's disappearance.

US seeks extension of UN scrutiny of human rights in Cuba

GENEVA, 11 (AFP) - The United States has formally put forward a draft resolution in the United Nations human rights commission seeking to prolong UN scrutiny of human rights in Cuba, a US official said.

"On top of the 25 member states of the European Union, we have the support of Canada, Australia, and Japan, in all 37 countries," Joel Danies, a member of the US delegation to the Commission said.

Only eight EU countries are currently members of the 53-state commission and able to vote on the resolution.

The mildly-worded resolution calls for the extension of the mandate of a UN expert examining the human rights situation in Cuba, Christine Chanet, which is due to run out this year.

It stopped short of asking Havana to receive Chanet or making precise reference to human rights violations under president Fidel Castro's regime.

Chanet would be tasked with reporting back to the commission in its 2006 session.

The resolution is due to be put to the vote at the end of the week.

Cuba has refused to cooperate with Chanet, who has warned that dozens of dissidents caught in a wave of arrests in 2003 were being held in "alarming conditions".

The Commission last year narrowly voted to adopt a resolution criticising a crackdown on dissidents in Cuba, which had been proposed by Honduras and backed by Washington.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said in March that he believed the United States would not get the support it needs this year to pass the motion.

 

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